UGC and Community Marketing: Leveraging users to beat the AI content tsunami

10:20 am
-
11:00 am
CT

Now, with content creation, outreach, and marketing campaigns being fully automated and commoditized by AI, building trust with users and buyers is more difficult than ever before. Authentic communication and social proof are the answers when it comes to making your brand stand out. The core question for marketers is: how can this be scaled?

In the past few years, Hack The Box has attracted a community of over 4 million users. The most interesting part is that most of that growth has been led by the community itself, especially through user-generated content and peer-to-peer recommendations, making it not only a wildly successful but also an extremely cost-efficient growth channel.

In this session, based on my last 2.5 years leading product marketing at Hack The Box, I will share how we’ve leaned on and recruited our own users to be the spokespeople for the brand, not only on the consumer side but also on the business side.

Session Agenda

  • The importance of authentic communication and social proof in an age where content is commoditized. Because content is cheap, the cost of acquiring trust has skyrocketed.
  • User-generated content is not only for B2C. It can be a unique advantage for B2B companies when it comes to scaling brand marketing and building trust.
  • Different ways to leverage your users (B2C or B2B) to become your marketing team based on my experience at Hack The Box
  • The economics of community-based marketing (and why it's so cost-efficient!)
  • Important Reminder: If you want people to help promote your brand, you need to give something first.

Speakers

Mariana Doncel

Head of Product Marketing

HackTheBox

Mariana Doncel

Head of Product Marketing

HackTheBox

I am the Head of Product Marketing at Hack The Box, leading the marketing and growth for our 4-million-strong global cybersecurity community. Throughout my career scaling international growth, building functions from scratch, and managing 8-figure revenue targets, I’ve learned that there is only one way of doing marketing: human-to-human. I'm here to talk about how community marketing can bring authentic communication and revenue goals together.

About this Session's Track

Community & Customer Marketing

Master the art of building vibrant customer and user communities, driving retention through advocacy programs, peer‑to‑peer engagement, and customer‑led events.